


nobody loves what can't love 'em back (what happened to the charm of a small town?)

by moonbeatblues



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, and man have i read some good riverdale fic in these last 48 hours, but anyway, comin at ya, honestly historians is murdering me, hopefully no one's getting whiplash from my dangerous inconsistency, it's 3 am and i'm having a Time, it's: t h i s, oh man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 00:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15961262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: Conservative suburbia always breeds the sort of wiry kids it tries to shut out, you think, examining your nails.(of breaking covenants, and of betty cooper, debaucher of daughters)





	nobody loves what can't love 'em back (what happened to the charm of a small town?)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from nonbeliever by lucy dacus- i'm really stuck on the whole album, it hits like a train.

Conservative suburbia always breeds the sort of wiry kids it tries to shut out, you think, examining your nails.   
  
Somewhere in tall, plush-carpet rooms with their white walls and the way it seems to be afternoon and midnight all at once through the windows, you gathered something sour in the back of your mouth and god, you’ve been looking to spit for so long.   
There’s a counterculture that comes with a clean house— the urge to destroy it. Your piano teacher always told you your fingers were pretty.   
Crooking them in someone so their thighs snap steel-shut around your hips, you imagine they’d agree.   
There comes a point past which you really have to stop counting your sins and just pretend it’s worth praying. Not that anyone can tell the difference.   
  
  
And Cheryl, well.   
Cheryl didn’t always get caught.   
—   
There’s a strange pride to be had in cracking Cheryl Blossom down the middle.    
At the very least it _feels_ sacred— seeing someone like that come apart at the seams, scrabbling and writhing on you like you’re exorcising them. Like the wet of your mouth is holy water.   
  
And when you’re finished in the sanctuary, and she emerges from your bathroom fluffing her hair with those acrylics, slow and blinking like a pleased cat, and kisses you before she puts more lipstick on, it doesn’t feel like there’s much left to fear in a town like this.   
—   
  
Veronica isn’t like you— maybe it’s why you actually work.   
  
Cheryl won’t admit it, not ever, but the two of you are very similar.   
Your parents are the sort of people who treat freedom like a reward for keeping your toes off the line. Good grades— you’ve been deemed worthy of using your own driver’s license.   
  
~~~~ Date boys: you get to leave the house.   
  
You wonder if Veronica can see it.   
The way you both want to just lose yourselves in someone new. Someone who hasn’t had time to hear your name the way it’s usually said. Someone who doesn’t know the things you do to keep going.   
-   
(Veronica being gorgeous might also have something to do with it.)   
-   
You and Cheryl, you’re always in some degree of a stand-off.   
  
Your relationship— god, what a word— is all mutually assured destruction, all quiet warnings and study sessions.   
And impassively grim, the same way you are with any thoughts of the future, you’re consigned to being two leaning pillars.   
Too far gone to remember who was supposed to stand, too tired to remember what it felt like, staying up by virtue of canceling each other out.    
One day you’ll erode each other down to where you can’t even touch, but you’ve got a few years left, at least.   
  
Cheryl doesn’t think about the future past what she can guarantee— which, to be fair, is a lot.    
You can’t much bear to factor each other into whatever comes next because it already doesn’t much make sense. Just one mutual anomaly below the surface.    
You don’t really change for one another, you just press up ill-fitting and so needy it feels perfect, for a little while.   
  
-

And then there's Veronica.

  
You wish it wasn’t so easy to hinge on Veronica, but she’s just _unexpected._   
There’s something intoxicating about a traveler, something that makes you all giddy and hopeful for something you don’t know. Like she’ll carry you off with her when she goes, again. Like she’s strong enough for your weight.   
-   
  
Veronica can hurt you, properly, and that’s enticing, too.   
  
She kisses like she’s trying to tell you something, earnest in a language you can understand without speaking it. Like she wants you to see something just over the hill, if you’ll just follow her up. She looks you in the eyes, sure and dark.    
_Trust me_ , she says, and you do.   
  
So, when she leaves you with her lipstick dark and obvious across your mouth and just _walks it the fuck off_ , it feels like losing her in the climb.   
  
Veronica has something that makes you dig your feet in like you absolutely have never done. You wonder if she’ll ever really understand what she does to people.    
-

  
The next time Veronica kisses you is better.   
A _lot_ better.   
  
  
There’s a party you’re not much paying attention to because she’s there.   
It’s always too easy to blot things out so you can focus better on Veronica, but to be fair, you’re also a little drunk.   
  
You think you’re playing seven minutes in heaven, or whatever the fuck game people too afraid to ask each other out play. It doesn’t much matter.   
All you really care about is that you’re in Cheryl’s closet— not the first time, you think to yourself, and don’t stop your subsequent smile— and Veronica is sitting with her knees against yours, holding your face in her hands.   
  
You sink gratefully into the hold, and Veronica returns your tipsy smile.    
“Hey,” you whisper.    
  
“Hey.” You can tell now when Veronica’s nervous, even without the habit of drawing blood to compensate.   
“You having fun, Betts?”   
  
“Yeah, I think so.”    
Her eyebrows draw together just so— you’ll probably always be worrying over each other. Checking in, all the time, keeping your heart rate down.   
You wish she’d afforded you that the first time around. Thinking about it hurts in this slow drip, a bit of a rush into the pit of your stomach, like someone’s scooped you out.   
  
You wonder if she’s trying to make up for it.   
  
“We don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to.” She’s not looking you in the eyes. “We can just sit here until someone comes to get us.”   
  
“No! I’m, uh—,”   
You surprise yourself with your own outburst. Subtle, as always.   
“I mean, gotta respect the game, right?”   
  
Veronica smiles and works her thumb along your cheekbone. “Guess so.”   
  
This time, she asks.    
She goes quiet for a moment, and says “Can I kiss you?” all raspy and the kind of low that makes you shiver. She’s wearing that deep red lipstick, still, and you blink and want her to get it all over your neck.   
  
“Yeah.”   
_ God, yes. _   
  
And this might have been a bad idea, because you really don’t think you’re going to get over the feeling of Veronica’s tongue in your mouth.   
She sighs into the kiss and it tastes like peach vodka and like stepping off an airplane. Learning what the ground feels like, again, and then she’s pulling back.   
  
Turning to press warm, open kisses to the side of your face while she shifts her knees, and—   
_ Oh. _   
  
She’s sitting in your lap.   
  
Mother would be most displeased.    
Her daughter, martyred like a saint to the wrong god in someone’s walk-in closet. That most unacceptable of communions, melting, perverse, against the roof of a _girl’s_ mouth.   
  
Oh, it’s far from the first time, but you’re letting someone else lead, now. Veronica’s brassy, and polished, and you could get used to being the sullied one.   
  
You fit your hands to her hipbones reverently, and she gasps against the angry red she’s sucking into your collarbone. There’s no coming back from this. Not after she’s splaying her hands at your stomach, too flush and not quite intending for anything lower, just an affirmation in the form of red lines and resulting sounds.   
  
  
There are certain things that come from this. There are tense car rides, and very different sleepovers, and there’s a new brand of affection, and when you re-emerge your nails make for the familiar bed of your palms.    
Sleepy and with a concerned noise, Veronica unfurls your hand to press her lips to it.    
You jump and she looks up at you from where she’s lying on her stomach, pulled up like a sphinx and with warm, warm eyes.   
“No more,” she whispers, and you blink slowly.   
  
“Okay.”   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i'm @seafleece on tumblr and @quetzalcoatlmundi for writing; come say hi!


End file.
